Amethists, Rubies, Emeralds, Aquamarines, Crystals
by Chameleon2
Summary: One-shot sequel to Eastern Policies. Lex is generous, Metropolis is hot, Lois is wearing too little and Clark is acting weird. There must be a connection somewhere.


As I promised, Here is the sequal one-shot to Eastern Policies. It's just some loose ends that are cleared up in this fic.

Ok, this takes place in the Blockage and Eastern Policies verse, but you don't need to read those stories to get this one. Only:

Chloe and Lex are having a relationship

Lex owes Lois bigtime for saving his life

Chloe, Clark en Lois all work at the Daily Planet

Lex is an evil, evil bastard

Have fun, this will be a very short one. I promise :)

AMETHISTS, RUBIES, EMERALDS, AQUAMARINES AND CRYSTALS

"Oh Lex, you shouldn't have!"

Chloe, Lex was happy to observe, no matter how well she knew him or claimed to know him, still reacted exactly the way he had thought she would. She sighed, feigning exhaustion with his generosity, but when he fastened the delicate necklace around her neck, she preened in the mirror and smiled, obviously pleased with the way the many colors of the stones reflected the colors of her earrings and the (in his opinion) somewhat gaudy ring Lois had bought her when she had to go to Florence for a series of interviews last year.

"Of course I shouldn't have," Lex said, shrugging lightly. He kissed the fastening where it lay against her skin, relishing the scent of healthy young woman, shampoo and some light, water-based eau de toilette. The tiny red, green and blue stones glittered even through her hair. "I just happened to see it and remembered you had earrings in these colors. If you want," he added with a smile, "I could tell you it was very cheap and thereby assuage your feelings of unease at my lavish expenditure."

*

Chloe grinned. By now she knew better than to complain about the presents he heaped upon her whenever the mood struck him. The mood struck him often, and swung as diverse as the hobbies he pursued and the objects he perused. He might buy her jewelry one day, and double roasted coffee beans from Brazil for her percolator the other. One moment he might discover her secret craving for the DVD box of all the seasons of Grey's Anatomy, and the next he fed her half a pound of Belgian chocolates.

She looked at the necklace. It was elegant and colorful, a lacy gold thread set with five different colors of gems (or glass and crystal, but she suspected they were gems), and fitted with the earrings as if the whole was meant as a set.

"It's lovely," she said, covering the hand he stroked along her neck and shoulder with her own. "And it's sweet of you to remember those earrings of mine."

Lex shrugged again, but his mouth curled like a cat's. "There's nothing sweet about it. I have an eidetic memory. You know, I never forget a thing."

"Oh so true," she muttered, and his smile widened to a somewhat sharkish grin. "Where'd you find it?"

"Oh, some small shop just south of the Mall," Lex said noncommittally.

Really, she shouldn't be surprised he'd been able to spot a necklace like this in a random shop. At one point she had been certain his hobby—at that time—had been playing at being a detective. He was uncannily good at ferreting out her most mundane, but also her most secret desires, and even better at fulfilling them. Except when it came to fulfilling her deep desire to watch him sing 'I'm too sexy' by Right Said Fred. He was blind, deaf and cripple to that particular wish.

Accepting presents, Chloe had found out, had little to do with the actual buying of things. She used to refuse presents, or discourage him to buy them before, thinking that somehow he was trying to buy HER. That, however, was not the case, and she knew that very well. He didn't need to buy her. No, giving her presents was something that made Lex happy, since he felt the only way he could show his sincere affection was to find things that she liked and give them to her. Whether they were cheap or outrageously expensive was not the issue. Money meant nothing to him. Surprising her, making her smile, squeal or laugh, did.

At the moment he was going through a magician-phase, which meant that he practiced sleight of hand and magic tricks whenever he had the time. She didn't know what had set off his interest in tricks; probably something at his work. A few months ago one of his fellow CEOs had dared him to solve Rubik's cube in one minute. Lex had spent two weeks fiddling with the multicolored cube—at work, at home, during dinner, even in bed one time—until he'd been able to solve it. His diligence drove her half insane. However, once he'd won his bet, the mania died, and the Rubic's cube had been ritually burned in his hearth.

Chloe expected that this fascination with magic stemmed from a similar bet, and would wear off quickly. At least this current obsession wasn't as annoying as the last. He was actually quite good at sleight of hand, and had conjured Nespresso cups out of her nose and ears, milk-foamers for The Perfect Cappuccino out of hats, and two Travis CDs out of his shirt sleeves. Condoms were one thing, media, he'd obviously found out, was quite another. He was still unable to steal her underwear while she was sipping wine on the sofa, but he was learning. The last time he'd tried, he'd got her bra unclasped and over one shoulder before she noticed.

She chuckled. "I'm surprised you didn't pull this out of my ear."

"Tsk. You pull coins out of ears, not necklaces." He smoothed her hair back into place, patted her shoulder. "There you go. All set. I have to go."

Chloe glanced at her watch. "Me too!" she discovered. "I promised to meet Lois and Clark at four. Will I see you tonight or is it going to be an all-nighter again?"

He shook his head. "Nah, I'll be back at about eleven, I should think. If you want, you can come over."

"How welcoming of you."

"I am a very hospitable man." He gave her a quick peck on the mouth. "Not that I need to, you having my key and all. If I think I might be late, I'll give you a call, alright?"

She nodded and he left, leaving her standing in front of the mirror. Lex's mirror, taking up an entire wall in Lex's clothes room (he had an entire room where she only had a closet) in Lex's penthouse. Sometimes she wondered why she still kept her own flat on; she was almost always here.

"Maybe because of Lois," she said to herself, and grinned at her reflection. Lois would hate it if Chloe ever moved in with Lex permanently. She had tried, so she said, but no matter how much she tried to ignore how much she loathed Lex, she really couldn't, and the feeling was mutual. Lex and Lois took to another like cat and dog.

Chloe snorted; the comparison was pretty accurate. In a strictly verbal way, Lex could fight just like a cat, all velvet paws and nasty claws when he wanted to hurt someone, while he might purr and charm when manipulating was in order. Lois was like a terrier in a way that had nothing to do with verbal: she always started with bared teeth, yapped angrily, and then went all out for the attack.

After witnessing one such meeting between his two unlikely friends, Clark had drawn a cartoon that had Chloe cracking up whenever she looked at it: a bald, lazy cat with Lex's long nose and round skull holding up a warning paw with all its razor-sharp nails unsheathed, and a somehow sensuous bull terrier with Lois' features, snarling mouth opened so wide she could have swallowed the cat whole. Clark had penned _'Bark! Bark! Bark!'_ next to the dog and _'Hiss! Yawn. Hiss!'_ next to the cat. That one sketch summed up the Lane and Luthor relationship so perfectly she'd stood in awe when she saw it, and she had demanded it as a gift to hang above her desk at the Planet.

Clark. The boy was a lot sharper than most people gave him credit for—much more than Lois gave him credit for. Although that, Chloe thought with a last glance at the mirror, was getting better too. Over the past years, her cousin and her best friend seemed to have grown closer, or at least less apart. With Lana gone, maybe they could once…

"And wouldn't pigs look adorable with wings?" she murmured. She snatched up her car keys from the table, picked up her purse and locked the door behind her as she walked out of Lex's apartment. Her boots thumped softly on the lush carpet of the elevator hall, but she was no longer cowed by the luxury. How a woman could change. Less than three years ago, she had fairly crept down this hallway to Lex's front door, intimidated by the chrome of the dustbins and the shiny elevator. Now she had to repress a yawn while she rode it down, and barely blinked when she noticed she had made a smear on the mirror with her hand. Even more mirrors in the elevators—for all those vain bachelors and bachelorettes living in this building, she gathered. She smirked, rubbed at the stain with the hem of her plain sleeveless cotton top. There was something satisfying about dressing simply, she thought, especially when she happened to run into one of the pleasure kittens living elsewhere in the residence. No matter what age or race they were, they all had several things in common: their anorexia-skinniness, their expertly coiffed, shiny hair, their designer clothes and their haughty looks when the peered down their noses at her. Those women made her hum 'A dog that's dressed in clothes is still a dog' beneath her breath.

She hummed that song now as she strode from the elevator, her skirt swinging, boots clicking, comfortable and happy with herself, her situation, and her position. After the air-conditioned lobby, the heat blasted in her face as if someone had turned on the world's biggest hairdryer. It hardly slowed her step. Her tiny car looked shabby parked between two Rolls Royces in the underground garage, and it made her sing even louder. Lex had offered to buy her a new car—one of the few gifts he'd actually asked if she'd accept. She guessed he had bad experiences with cars. She was glad he had asked; she was fond of her car and no desire to part with it.

Whistling, she rolled down the window and let the summer breeze play through her hair. Summer in Metropolis was hot, stuffy, and smoggy, but she loved it anyway. So what if all the birds had dropped dead from the gases and the lawns and parks had to be irrigated with spring water if they wanted to stand even a chance of survival? It was summer, it was a Saturday, and Chloe Sullivan was off to spend the afternoon and early evening with her two most beloved colleagues, so how could it be better?

She parked her car next to Lois' beat-up Lincoln. She was already there. Clark must have walked, or he hadn't arrived yet. As she strolled up to the Café's entrance, she found her cousin outside, subtly ogled by a handful of youngsters, sunglasses on her nose and a cigarette tucked into the left corner of her mouth. She was wearing a top that made her cleavage look like the Grand Canyon. As she approached, Chloe could see how a drop of sweat gathered in the hollow at her throat and slowly rolled into that impressive cleft.

_Ploop!_ Chloe thought. Lois must have a right pool in her bra. If, of course, she was wearing one.

"Hi!" Lois said, and blew out a cloud of smoke into the quivering air. As usual, she seemed oblivious to her own blatant sensuality.

"Hi yourself." Lois was quite a bit taller than Chloe, and her breasts formed an irresistible lure. Chloe gave her cousin a loose hug—the heat warranted nothing tight—and faced down into the recess formed by Lois Lane's breasts. "Echo, echo," she muttered, and Lois swatted at her arm.

"Knock it off. I burned a hole in the one I was planning to wear."

"So you decided to tantalize the local male populace with your high school gym top. For god's sake, Lois, have some consideration for poor Clark."

"Puh." She took another drag and blew it out through her nose. "Smallville likes tiny tits and narrow hips. My honor is in no danger from that side, darling. But thank you for your consideration. You're looking good, as usual. Sexy yet elegant. Although I can't understand why you aren't wearing Prada."

"Prada is out," Chloe said with the air of a connoisseur. "Macy cotton is in."

"Cute necklace."

"Thanks. Lex gave it to me, to go with your earrings and the ring."

"How very sweet of him."

"Isn't it?"

They grinned at each other. Lois sucked on her cigarette as if it were made of candy. Chloe pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose; they kept sliding down on her sweaty nose.

"Oh Smallville…" Lois sing-songed, when she had smoked her fag up to the very edge of the filter and ground that up beneath her heel. "Where aaaare you? We're melting down here…"

"I can see that." A welcome shadow fell over them. And then fell against Chloe as he stumbled. He grasped her shoulders to keep upright, blushed and stood up straight again. "Sorry," Clark mumbled, stepping back. "I…um…fell."

Chloe and Lois stared up at Clark Kent, who was also dressed in a sleeveless shirt, and who suddenly looked just as warm and disheveled as Lois did.

"You know what, Smallville," Lois said, and it seemed her canyon became even deeper. "I think we can forgive you for that."

AREAC Part 2

Clark Kent and Summer went together like strawberries and cream. He always looked great, even with the nerdy glasses he sometimes put on when he wanted to 'blend in' (quite unlike the shades he was wearing at this moment), but sunlight made his skin and hair glow like a well-brushed Flatcoat retriever, turning him into the poster boy for healthy, sunny Kansas. Clark adored the sun. He had once confided to Chloe it charged him up like a battery. Maybe that explained why he was slower in the winter, Chloe had thought at the time, while she waited for him to bring her a latte at work.

When he'd been living in Smallville, Chloe had only seen him without a shirt when he was really small, and perhaps three or four times after he'd turned fifteen. She'd often wondered why he did all his chores in more than cut-off jeans in the blazing heat—until she happened, in her fifth year of high school, to come to the Kent farm one early morning for an errand and saw him, hammering fence poles into the ground in his boxer shorts and sneakers.

Clark in clothes, at seventeen, was tall and yummy.

Clark in boxers only was inequitable, a painful reminder to the female sex that god definitely preferred his first human creation—even if it was an alien.

She'd hardly noticed he was putting those poles in the ground with a slap of his palm, not a hammer, because damn, she'd thought she was over that crush. It wasn't even that she'd always had a thing for this boy, this boy that had more muscles than his own father and whose body surpassed many an athlete's, let alone the generally wiry adolescents' of Smallville. It was the way he looked, standing there in the sun all golden, like a reincarnation of some Greek hero, Jason, perhaps, or Achilles, face young and childlike, intent on his task, movements languid and easy.

If Clark took to walking around half-naked in Smallville during the Summer he'd be the talk of the town within one afternoon. The girls who dismissed him now as a dork would follow him around leaving a muddy trail of drool in the sand. Since Clark's entire life consisted of trying NOT to stand out, he'd hid as much of himself as he could. And he'd been right doing so, too.

Lois had seen him naked. As a matter of fact, the very first time she met him he'd been stark naked. But over the years Clark had begun to cultivate the shy, bumbling persona he had so often played in Smallville to Big City standards. In suits and jackets, he was just big, and with his still innocent face, he easily fooled people into believing he was some sort of teddy bear—not stupid, or even slow, but mild-mannered and wholly harmless.

By the looks of Lois' face, as she drank in the glowing, sun-warmed appearance of her every-day colleague in a rather tight-fitting shirt that set off every pectoral to perfection, she had forgotten that first meeting and only recalled it now. Chloe hoped she, herself, didn't sport that same hungry look. Neither she nor Lois were the kind of women who swooned over men. Catcalls and booty calls she thought preposterous. Nevertheless she suddenly felt a powerful need to moisten her lips and throat, which had nothing to do with the heat.

_Down, girl! Best friend, nothing more!_

Clark shot the both of them a lopsided grin. A thin sheen of sweat covered his face and made his cheek bones shine; his bangs stuck to his forehead. When he took off his sunglasses he had to swipe hair from his eyes. "Hot, isn't it?"

"Like a terrace in Hell," Lois agreed. She had already recovered from the shock of realizing her colleague was gorgeous. Clark's eyes kept drifting towards her chest; he was a bit slower recovering.

"Let's get a table in the shade," Chloe said, trying to hide a smile. Strange. At times she had thought Clark's fascination with Lana annoying. His inability to tear himself away from her cousin's breasts, however, filled her with amusement. He didn't often display male weaknesses like that.

"Shade?" Clark muttered wistfully.

"Unless you want skin cancer, yeah, shade sounds pretty good," Lois said. "And beer. Lots of beer!" She gave Clark a push, and he stumbled ahead of her, obediently started to scan for an unoccupied table. Lois moved after him.

"I thought we were going out for coffee," Chloe protested, jogging after her cousin. They filed through the mass of chatting people outside the café. Either Clark was trying out his Jaws act (he may be harmless, but he still cast an impressive shadow), or he'd found an abandoned table.

"Coffee? You've got to be joking. If it's a frappuccino I MIGHT just consider it…but no, I need beer. Ice cold wheat beer with condensation dripping down the glass, with a slice of lemon…"

"What the hell is wheat beer?"

"I doubt they'll have that here," Clark answered in Lois' stead. "It's a European kind of beer. Ah. Wait." He stopped at a table, where a harassed-looking young mother tried to extricate herself from her clinging child, who obviously had issues with the buggy it was strapped in to. "Excuse me, are you leaving?"

A moment later they were wiping cookie crumbs off their seats, while the young couple with two small children dragged their offspring off the terrace. The child in the buggy howled all the way until they had disappeared from view.

"I love kids, I really do," Lois muttered. She stared with disgust at a molten ice cream dollop on the leg of her chair. It had formed a puddle below the table. A big drop of cream also adorned the wilting flower languishing in a narrow glass vase in the middle of the table. The water around its stem must be approaching 105 degrees.

Chloe gave her a paper tissue. "They were probably hot and tired and needed to be in bed," she said, shrugging.

"Then why weren't they? Do you have another tissue? Where is a waiter when you need him? Oh Christ, Smallville, please drag your chair back under the parasol; just looking at you makes me sweat."

"So don't look." Clark turned his chair so half of his body was in the sun. He squeezed his eyes half-shut with pleasure. Chloe dropped down on the chair next to him.

"Good god, Clark, you're going to shrivel up like a raisin." He didn't look like he were going to do anything like that. The flush spreading over his nose and cheeks wasn't sunburn, she knew. It was probably some kind of 'battery loading' color, like some of the Duracell batteries had on the side. As a matter of fact, if he looked any more pleased people might start shielding their children's eyes. _Give him a bone and he's going to spontaneously grow a tail with the sole purpose of wagging it, _she thought, grinning. She herself moved a bit closer to him so she could still profit of the edge of shade falling over their table.

"Oh, there's a waiter," Lois said, and Clark's hand shot up to call him over…

and completely beheaded the parasol.

Chloe blinked.

Lois stared, first at Clark, then at the screen of the parasol, that merrily bounded off across the tables and then the street.

"Well fuck," Clark drawled, and that made her eyes snap back to him. Clark stared after the screen, a strange, lazy, half embarrassed, half amused smile tugging at his mouth.

'_Fuck_???' Lois mouthed at Chloe. 'SMALLVILLE?? FUCK???'

Chloe pulled up her shoulders so high their almost topped her ears, and stared at Clark in dismay. Was there such a thing as solar overcharging? Had he ever flushed before, because of the sun that was, and not because he'd stuck his foot in his mouth or stumbled over them to fall at Lana's feet?

But by now the waiter had arrived, and a friendly man had caught the parasol and handed it back to Clark, who thanked him in his ordinary polite way before screwing it back on its pole.

"Must've been a gust of wind," he said to the waiter, and dropped back down in his seat.

The young man nodded. He produced a moist rag and started cleaning the table with quick, practiced movements, neatly skirting around the vase in the center. "Yeah, happens all the time. No problem. I'll be glad when the sun goes down; it's like a public barbeque on the terrace, only the meat's volunteered to grill and asks for refreshments." He flashed Lois a grin, not even bothering to hide his glance into her cleavage, slung the rag over his arm and took out his notepad. "What can I get you guys?"

"I'd like a beer. Do you have wheat beer? Like Palm? Or Weihenstephaner? Hoegaarden?"

"Hoo-what? No, sorry."

Lois pouted. "Just a beer, then."

"Me, too," Clark said.

"I'd like a…"

"And a banana-caramel frappuccino with cream and sprinkles for her," Clark went on, then paused as he realized she was staring at him. "What? Oh, sorry, did you want to order yourself?"

"Uh, no," she stuttered, baffled. "Uh, that's what I was going to order." She produced a smile for the waiter, who winked back before walking off, and raised her eyebrow at Clark.

He grinned widely and wiggled his fingers at his temples. "I can rrread miiiindzzz," he intoned in a horribly fake German accent.

"Apparently."

"Oh, don't be an idiot, Chlo," Lois said. She rubbed her hands through her hair, upsetting the precarious balance of her breasts and sending them wobbling. "You're always having banana-caramel frappuccinos when it's hot."

"No, she doesn't," Clark said. He regarded the bobbing motion with open interest. "She's always having strawberry fraps. Christ, that flower really is copping it something bad, isn't it?" He nudged a fingertip against the dahlia. It gave up all pretense of life and collapsed in a heap of brown petals.

"Really, Clark, you're spending too much time with the suicide slum scum," Lois drawled. "'Copping it something bad'? You sound like a hoodlum."

"Well, it's dead, isn't it? Or does this look like a healthy, blooming flower to you?"

She shrugged. "It's dead. So are all the other flowers on all the other tables. Big deal."

"You have no heart for nature."

"And that makes you what? Bloody Captain Planet? It's just a fucking flower." She combed her fingers through her hair, all the way to the tips, and Clark's mouth widened again as he stared, transfixed, at her breasts. The tight top made them bulge up and out more effectively than a push-up bra, and Chloe felt a moment of pity for the poor top, which hadn't been made for this purpose. _Pop! goes the weasel! _she thought cynically.

Chloe cleared her throat. Attraction, fine, but she was beginning to feel as if she were at a peep show. "So," she said, seizing Clark's attention, "How are things at the farm?"

"As they always are." He tore his eyes away with an almost audible ripping sound, and blinked. Was it the reflection of the parasol, or was there really a reddish haze in his eyes? "Fine. One of the cows died, but the black one had a calf this spring, so the population hasn't diminished." He stroked his thumb along the edge of the table. As he did so, Chloe noticed that the metal ring that circled the edge of the table had come loose. It made a soft ploinking sound as he fingered it. "And a fox killed seven chickens," he went on, "so Mom's eating loads of chicken casseroles, also with the croup and other diseases getting 'round, you know. Better kill them now and eat them before they die on you. Yeah, nothing more wonderful than coming home and chopping chicken heads." He reached out and casually bent the metal strip back into place. Chloe hoped to god Lois hadn't noticed. "The tractor'd broken down again, but I fixed it and it's working again," he went on unperturbedly. "Mom's fine, too. She says hello. I think." He frowned, rubbed his forehead. "Maybe she didn't. She usually does. She probably did. Ah, beer!" He reached out eagerly for the glass the waiter held out to him.

Chloe blinked at Lois. _What the hell is wrong with him? _She might almost think he was being influenced by Red K, but it wasn't like that. Red K made him reckless and rebellious, but this wasn't rebellious, this was WEIRD.

This time it was Lois' turn to raise her eyebrows. "Heatstroke?" she wondered, and then stared as Clark downed his half pint in six huge gulps, held the empty glass back out to the stunned waiter and said, "I'd like another one of those, please. No, make it two. Do you have pitchers?"

"Uh, sure," the young man stuttered. Clark shot him a dazzling smile. "Make it two. And please be quick about it. Chop chop!"

The waiter chopchopped off.

"Maybe you should stick to lemonade," Lois cautioned. She took a sip of her beer, cast a glance at Clark and moved the glass further away from him. "How much did you have to drink before coming over?"

"Nothing! Can't a man be thirsty?"

Did alcohol affect Clark? Chloe wondered.

"I think you should move back into the shade anyway." Lois' voice brooked no argument. "You're red as a lobster."

Clark was not the argumentative sort—even though Lois was right, Chloe noticed with a hint of alarm. The charming flush was spreading all over him, and turning a darker red by the minute. "I don't care. I like the sun. And it likes me in return; it won't hurt me." He stretched out, and carelessly bent the steel arm rests and back of the chair he was sitting in until he could sprawl in a halfway reclining posture. He faced Lois with a smug expression, raising his sunburned nose even higher to the sun.

"Clark!" Chloe hissed, aghast at his heedlessness.

"What?"

"The…" The _chair_. Suddenly, mentioning the chair and its twisted frame seemed worse than ignoring it. "Nothing." The funny thing was that neither Lois, nor any of the people surrounding them seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. They all assumed he had a positional chair; calling attention to the fact that he really didn't might not be such a good idea. Not knowing what else to say, she sucked the straw of her frappuccino into her mouth and let the blessed cold java cool her head.

Ok, it's hot. Hotter than it ever gets in Smallville, and maybe the hottest Summer in Metropolis ever. Maybe he's getting too much sun. Yeah, that's probably it, too much sun. We should get him out of the sun.

She looked at him. He sat in the reconstructed chair as if he were made of photosynthetic putty.

Fat chance.

She took another mouthful of coffee-ice. She had the feeling she'd need it.

TBC

AREAC part 3

Apart from burning a painful-looking red, Clark did nothing noteworthy while Chloe drank her frap and Lois sipped her beer. At one point the waiter brought two pitchers of beer, his grin somewhat faded after the 'Chop chop!' comment, but one look at Lois seemed to crank up his mood and he left whistling.

Clark poured himself a glass, offered Lois a refill, and sat back in his chair, staring at her with eyes that shouldn't be dilated in this amount of sunshine.

_He gives the expression 'smoldering eyes' a whole new meaning, _Chloe thought. And then: _I really hope he won't accidentally set her on fire! That would be…bad. Oh hell, Lois, you MUST have other clothes! Why didn't you pick a T-shirt?_

After a while, even Lois noticed; she pulled at the neckline of her top in a rather futile attempt to cover herself up and spat, "What?!"

"I wish I had a twenty dollar bill," Clark said dreamily.

Chloe choked on her last mouthful of coffee.

"Wh-WHAT?" Lois shrieked.

Clark regarded her with pleasant condescension. "You can't tell me you aren't aware of the way you are looking right now. I mean, if you lean over to pick up your glass I can see all the way to your navel. Not that I can't do that if I—ow!" He shot Chloe a hurt look. "What'd you do that for?"

Chloe removed her heel from his shin, too mortified to notice her kick had done more than just draw his attention. "You do not, repeat NOT _peek_ at women," she hissed. She repressed the urge to cover her own breasts with her hands. If he were using his X-ray vision he'd be able to look though her shirt at those as well. "Not even if you CAN."

"Well I don't exactly need to do any PEEKING, here, do I?" he retorted, gesturing at Lois with both hands. She stared back at him with abject horror. "Not that I MIND, of course," he eased Lois' mind. "You're just kind of distracting." He took another swallow of beer. "Not in a bad way, or anything. It's just that you remind me of that evening, oh, years ago, when we were investigating the death of this stripper and ended up in that club and you did some kind of striptease…Well, you marched in place and saluted the clientele in that teeny tiny stars'n'stripes costume and boots…but…" He grinned, but Lois wouldn't let him finish.

"Good god, that you remember that!"

"Well, duh. It was the most patriotic striptease I ever saw." He snickered. "Looked damn good, though. If you'd been Uncle Sam's poster girl I'd have joined the army a long time ago."

"That was that poor stripper girl, wasn't it?" Chloe mused. "What was her name? Melanie? Melinda?"

"Melissa," Clark said. "She'd been my dad's friend's girl. Jennings."

"One of the few nasty stories not connected to the name Luthor," Lois said, then licked her lips and hastily added, "No offense to your boyfriend, of course, Chlo."

"Sure, why should I take offense if you call my boyfriend a murderer?"

"I'm not calling him a murderer. But you can't deny that he's been involved with a hell of a lot of business that is to say at least unsavory."

"Oh, absolutely." She picked up Clark's glass and swigged it empty. "I've ferreted out a few of those unsavory businesses myself. But as long as I'm sleeping with him and having a really good time with him, you might want to keep your mouth shut about it."

"Wowwowwow!" Clark said, waving his hands. "Easy there, Chloe! She didn't mean anything by it. Here," he refilled his glass and pushed it her way, "have some more beer."

And Lois as well leaned over the table, providing Clark with that navel-view he so enjoyed, and pleaded, "Oh come on, don't be mad! I'm sorry. Like Clark said, I don't mean anything by it, you know that. I just open my mouth and all kinds of bull comes out. Don't be angry. Lex is a fine guy. Well, personally I still think he's a prick, but I know he's not a murderer and I wouldn't dream of insulting him if you…if you…well, I won't. Hell, I saved the man's life, so I must think he's worth SOMETHING, right?"

"Yeah," Clark said, and chuckled. "Lois actually LOVES Lex. She's his biggest fan. I mean, they even have the same initials. Whenever she's embroidering double Ls on silk handkerchiefs she's making them for Lex, not herse—hey, hey, watch it with the beer! That's precious liquid, lady, and you shouldn't waste it!" He wiped a handful of foam off his face.

"That's right," Chloe realized. She was amazed she hadn't noticed before. Lex Luthor. Lois Lane. Double L. She grinned widely, anger forgotten in the rush of wonderful opportunities to annoy both owners of the double initials.

"Oh no, no, you won't!" Lois cried. "I'm warning you, cousin, you are NOT going to use my name against me! Besides," a smug expression crossed her face, and she took a triumphant swallow from her glass, "his initials aren't L.L., but A.L.."

"Sharp," Chloe admitted, "but no cigar. You were christened Aloisia. So that makes you A.L., too."

"_Aloisia_!?" Clark hooted, just as Lois protested, "I was not!"

"I saw your passport, darling, and it was there in black and white. Aloisia Lane, Lois for short. You're as much A.L. as he is."

"Cigar…" Clark muttered, and giggled. He emptied the glass he had filled for Chloe, and poured the last bit of the first pitcher into it. Lois' mouth opened and closed in outrage; finally she cast a beseeching glance at Clark. He refilled her glass as well from the second pitcher. "You're welcome, Aloisia." She drowned her lack of defense in beer.

"Speaking about A.L.," Chloe continued, smiling with cruel victory, "and about your dedication to my boyfriend…You still haven't asked him for anything. In exchange for saving his life, I mean. In China."

"I know."

"He thinks he's honor-bound to repay you."

"I know."

"It wouldn't be like lowering yourself, or begging, or something. The way he sees it, you have the right to ask him for something, anything at all, and he'll do it."

"I know."

"So…?"

"So I'm going to let it hang over his shoulder like a Damoclesian sword until he forgets about it and cuts himself when he rises without thinking." Lois' smile was just as cruel as Chloe's. It was gone just as quickly, though. "Or, until I run into something I need his help to solve. Won't happen, though." She finished her beer and immediately poured herself another one, "So far, nothing's come up that I couldn't handle. Nah, let my rescue act Ghost Dog him as a constant reminder that he owes me one. I find it makes him a lot more easy to bear.

'Uh, sorry, here I go again. Sweet Lex. Nice Lex. Good Lex. Hell, if I found him tied to another table I'd rescue him again, no question about it." She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, showed Chloe a wicked grin. "That wouldn't be such a bad thing, actually. Then he'd owe me twice and I could ask him to buy me a tank. Or I could challenge him to spar with me, and see how fast I can kick his lily ass into the ground."

"I would SO love to see that," Clark breathed.

"Why do I have the feeling you're picturing me in that Stars'n'Stripes do-up again?" Lois asked tartly.

Clark chortled. "Not you. Lex."

After two seconds of stunned silence, Lois burst into peals of laugher and Chloe guffawed, shivering at the same time. She stole Clark's glass again for a quick sip.

"That is…disturbing."

"Mmm. Very." He reclaimed his drink. "Do you want a glass as well? Or another frappuccino?"

"With the images you're conjuring I think I might have need of something stronger."

"Alcohol in this heat? You like to live dangerously, don't you?"

"Says the man who's consumed one and a half pitcher on his own."

"And who now, apparently," Lois piped up, "is drunk enough to fantasize about YOUR boyfriend in MY hotpants."

"Could we please stop talking about Lex in hotpants?"

"I'm not fantasizing! If there was any fantasizing to do it'd still be you in those pants, and most certainly not Lex." Beneath the sunburn, Clark blushed an even deeper red.

"Why thank y—" Lois started sarcastically, when Clark added, "Where'd I leave my twenty dollar bill?"

Chloe giggled.

Lois' mouth opened, then closed slowly. "Maybe," she said sweetly, "I should dare YOU to spar with me. After all, while I marched in front of you in a bra and hotpants, YOU introduced yourself to me without wearing as much as a SOCK."

Clark shook his head. "I'm going to hear this till the day I die, won't I? And I can't even remember doing so. What does that have to do with sparring? It's not as if I ever displayed any Chippendale tendencies."

"You'd be very successful, though," Lois gave him a challenging leer.

Clark leered back. The expression alarmed Chloe a bit. "You think I should walk around naked more often? Is that what you're saying?"

"Eh…" Chloe said, moving a little closer to Clark to nudge him. It was all very nice that he and Lois were exploring the possibilities of a relationship, but with Clark acting so weird she was quite sure she didn't want her daring him to strip in the middle of the terrace, because she might, and at the moment, he might, too. She rather belatedly recalled her earlier resolve to get him out of the sun, and edged her chair closer. "Move it, will you. I feel like I'm on a stove."

"Nah," said Clark, smiling lazily, and heated the steel table surface with his eyes. "NOW you feel like you're on a stove."

Chloe pulled back her hand with a yell; at the same time, Clark's glass exploded on the overheated table. "CLARK!! For fuck's sake!"

Lois abruptly pushed back from the table. "What just happened? What did he do? Are you ok?" she asked Chloe, but her cousin glared at Clark so angrily that if SHE had been able to shoot fire from her eyes, Clark would have been only a sizzling pile of ashes.

"Nothing." She didn't take her eyes off of Clark. This was insane. He was insane! "I think the glass blew up because of the heat. Don't touch the table; you might pick up a splinter." She rubbed her own hand. Only her pinky had been resting on the table and she wasn't hurt, but she was shaken.

Clark was looking up at her with laughing eyes that had a faint reddish glow that reflected on his gleaming wet nose and cheeks. He was slowly beginning to resemble a lobster, fresh out of the boiling water. His smile was no longer something delightful; instead, it looked manic to her. Dimples or no.

"Don't make a fuss." He blew at the table, and it was cool before Lois gingerly began to gather the broken pieces of glass together. "Oh come on, let the staff do their work, Lois. What else are we tipping them for?"

_Ok, that's it._ Chloe smacked her palm against his forehead. He was so hot she let out another little yelp and snatched her hand back. _Yes, definitely it. He's burning up! He's…good god, I don't think my shower goes this hot. He must be really sick!_ Yet he hadn't seemed sick, even if he had acted weird.

However, as she crouched next to him, gingerly feeling his face again and the sweat that was pouring off of him, a grimace twisted his mouth, and both smile and red gleam disappeared.

"I don't feel so good," Clark muttered, and wrapped his arms around his stomach.

*

In the room across the street, Lex sat up and wrote down a final comment in his notebook, before snapping it closed and tucking it away. He couldn't repress a satisfied smile. In the space of one hour, he had learned more about the effects of the various kinds of Kryptonite on Clark Kent than he had during their entire acquaintance. Of course, it was impossible to tell which piece had made him behave in which way, but he thought he could guess. The green kryptonite was simply a means to make him more susceptible to the rest; he'd kept the green stones tiny on purpose. After all, he didn't want to make Clark sick, or hurt him. He just wanted to study his reaction. It wouldn't do to have him chucking up all those liters of beer, or go into hyperthermic shock. While the mental of image of Clark going in Heat right there at that table over Lois Lane's breasts might hold some appeal, he did not want to hurt the girl, either. Well, not like that, anyway. No, before things got out of hand, now was the time to end his little experiment. Especially since Chloe was bound to remember his little gift at one moment, find out what was causing Clark's affliction and confront him with it, and while innocence was easy to fake he preferred to be able to use it again.

"Get into the shade," Lois was saying, for once not only blabbing off at the mouth but acting at the same time. She hauled at Clark's arm and he had to move his chair or fall over and out of his seat. The moment he got into the shadow of the parasol (and further away from Chloe), the look of pain on his face eased a bit. "Maybe you should get something else to drink. Plain water. With ice."

Timing was essential, now. He took off one the Wayne Enterprises ELDAD: the Long Distance Audio Devices, cursing softly as the ear piece snagged in a lock of hair. Keeping his eyes on the three on the terrace below him, he hastily packed his things into his backpack: the binoculars he had used to watch them up close and personal, the ear piece (he hadn't dared rely on the kryptonite to scramble Clark's senses enough not to detect any bugs placed on or underneath the table), his pen and the empty cup of prefab coffee he'd brought with him before stake-out. He made sure it was dry on the inside, so it wouldn't leak on the suit that lay folded inside the backpack. He looked quite different, now.

Lex had always felt a certain disdain for bald or balding men who resorted to wigs and toupees, and the one time he had considered hair fusion was when he stared at himself in the mirror for the first time after the meteor hit. He detested wigs as a symbol of vanity.

For disguise purposes, though, he delighted in them.

He had prepared this disguise one week ago, and was very happy with the result. He highly doubted anyone would recognize him, not even Chloe. The fact that she possibly might only made his heart beat faster.

He zipped up the bag, patted his pocket to make sure the substitute was safely inside, and peered anxiously at his girlfriend at the table below.

Timing.

He hadn't been clocking her bodily functions for nothing. After seven days of meticulous observation he could predict with reasonable certainty the time it took for coffee to complete the tract from mouth to bladder. One cup: about two hours before she had to pee. Two cups, about one and a half hour. One of those lethal beakers: one hour, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but never more than eighty minutes. Earlier imbibed beverages quickened the digestive process. He had made Chloe tea before she left, and she'd finished that frappuccino thing a little over 50 minutes ago. Additionally, she'd had about half a glass of beer. She was due for a toilet break any moment now, and he intended to be there when she went.

He only hoped Clark wouldn't become truly sick. He'd get better soon enough, but if he started puking Chloe might decide to skip her bathroom break in favor of loving friendship care, and that would rob him of his chance to test his sleight of hand skills--not to mention royally fuck up his plan. Of course, he had several plans at the ready, but his original plan A was still his favorite and if anyway possibly, he didn't want to resort to Bs or Cs.

With the backpack slung over his shoulder and one ELDAD pressed against his ear, he made his way down to the door, ready to move whenever he saw his chance.

"There, you look better already," Lois was saying. "You really should know better, you know. Christ, you're hot as a coal. Maybe we should..."

"I'll get him some ice water," Chloe's voice piped up. He heard the sound of a chair scraping back over rough stone tiles.

"But I'm ok, really!" Clark protested.

"No, you're not." The love of his life sounded a trifle miffed—more miffed than worried, Lex was glad to hear. "Stay here, I'll get you some water."

"But the waiter..."

"Will take too long. Back in a sec! Lois, make sure he doesn't run."

_YES!_

Clark, Lex deducted from the light tone of her voice, was obviously doing better the moment she was further away from him, and to his immense satisfaction neither of the three seemed to have noticed. He stuffed the remaining ear into his pocket, took out his stack of unbound pages, opened the door and carefully timed his saunter across the road so he arrived at the same time inside the café as Chloe.

First, she went to the counter, pointed at her two friends on the terrace and mimicked a glass bursting. Then, as he had hoped she'd do, she walked on towards the lavatory. All those hours of quiet observation had not been wasted.

Casually, Lex pushed his sunglasses higher onto his nose, and, while he passed her, bumped into her and dropped all his papers on the floor.

"My thesis!" he said, and dropped to his knees to pick them up again, at the same moment pulling out the substitute out of his pocket.

"Oh sorry!" Chloe exclaimed, although it had hardly been her fault. She knelt down as well and started to gather the scattered pages together.

"That's ok," he muttered, and peered at her through the curtain of brown hair. She wasn't even looking at him. "I didn't look. My bad. Thanks a lot."

Chloe smiled a polite smile, and bent at the waist to pick up a page that had flown to the side. Lex half-leaned over her to reach for another page, and as he did so, he deftly unclasped her necklace. With one quick snap of his wrist, the thin Kryptonite band disappeared into his hand. He let the other necklace drop down into his fingers, and when he briefly rested his hand on her shoulder—in order to scrabble for another missing piece of his thesis (which actually WAS a thesis on the effects of sleep depravation on children; he'd jotted it down a few days ago)—he neatly fastened the innocent necklace with real amethysts, rubies, emeralds, and crystals around her neck.

Sleight of hand. Damn it, but he was better than Paul Daniels.

She hadn't noticed a thing.

It was hard to contain his grin while he gathered the last of his document together, but he managed. "Thanks," he only said when he had the whole thing in his arms again. "And sorry."

"That's ok," Chloe said, with another perfunctory smile. She moved on to the bathroom.

Lex stuffed his article into his backpack, and left the café without looking back. But he couldn't help smiling broadly all the way to his car.

*

After her run-in with the hard-rock post-grad, Chloe quickly did her business in the toilets. She really hoped Clark wasn't sick—what the hell could they do if he were? Maybe she ought to call Mrs Kent, if he didn't get better. Then again, it could be the sun, right? Didn't he feel better when he got out of it? A surplus of sunlight? It usually charged him up, but wasn't too much food unhealthy for humans, too?

She washed her hands, mechanically checking her reflection in the mirror and adjusting an out-of-place hairlock. In this hour or so she'd managed to get sunburned on her right shoulder and the right side of her face…One of the stones glittered as she tilted her head to inspect her cheek.

Green.

Green stones. And red ones.

Holy fuck. Could it be…Could Lex…No. No, he wouldn't.

Nevertheless she stared at the necklace as if it might be a snake. What if they WERE? What if Lex had given her a necklace with Kryptonite stones?

He wouldn't do such a thing! If only because he wouldn't be this STUPID! He'd know I'd KILL him if he used me to get to Clark!

_But he said he bought it somewhere…and people seem to have a knack for using Kryptonite for all the wrong kind of things…_She felt at the back of her neck and unclasped the fastening. It had a very easy fastening, easy to open. It fell into her hand as cool and smooth as a piece of rope.

This might be nothing. Just a piece of jewelry. A gift, a sweet, considerate gift. It might just be the sun.

Right.

She turned on her heel and stalked out of the bathroom, back to the terrace. Clark was sitting in the shade, still a bit flushed, but not half as red as he had been only a moment before.

_Because I left? Because the necklace left?_

He had drunk down most of the water which must have arrived while she was away. She forced her face into an expression of mild concern. "Clark. You ok? Or do we need to take you home?"

He smiled his own, sweet, somewhat shy smile. Not a hint of lazy cruelty. "No, I'm fine. Really, I'm fine."

"He doesn't feel so hot anymore," Lois agreed. She was sitting quite close to him, their shoulders touching. Clark carefully avoided glancing at her breasts.

Chloe swallowed. "Really?" She hesitated; if this necklace was the cause of his weird behavior…if it hurt him…but she wanted to know. She reached out the hand holding Lex's gift and touched his cheek. He was slightly damp, but pleasantly warm to the touch. Neither did he flinch, nor did the red light enter his eyes. She all but pressed one of the green stones against his skin, but he didn't react to it at all.

Chloe heaved a sigh of relief.

"Are YOU alright?" Clark asked, brow furrowing in worry.

She smiled, and then grinned. "Yeah. I'm fine. I dropped my necklace, but I found it again. I'm glad you're doing better."

"Better?" Clark asked, honestly puzzled.

"Really," Lois sighed, and poured herself another beer. "Whether people are in Smallville or in Metropolis, the number of cases of complete amnesia is alarming. You were being a dope, Smallville." She handed him the beer. "Here. But take it easy. And stay out of the sun. I don't care if sunshine makes you happy; you're staying out of it."

"Yes ma'am." Their fingers touched as he accepted the glass. Clark smiled. It was the kind of smile that had made Lana return after one dumping after the other, and that had made Chloe into a supportive shoulder for the girlfriend, and the most trusted sidekick of the boyfriend.

Lois smiled back. She licked her lip as if she wanted to say something else, then thought better of it and only smiled wider.

Chloe smiled as well. She refastened the necklace around her neck. It was a wonderful day after all.

END

Something I found on the net about the various kinds of Kryptonite:

Green- pain and kill in hours  
Red- random effects  
Gold- strips kryptonian powers  
White- kills all plant life  
Blue- kills Bizzaros  
Jewel Kryptonite- amplifies phychic powers  
Slow Kryptonite- slows speed  
Purple Kryptonite- gives Kryptonians mental/psychic powers  
Black Kryptonite-splits a person or persons' personality into two separate entities


End file.
